Tag: family

Natty Bumpercar: oh hey bumper podcast it's me natty bumper car and this is this is a first this is a first for two different reasons the first first is that i'm recording this from outside the uh of headquarters outside we left the lab we took all the equipment we are outside uh so you might get to hear some nice environmental noises maybe a bird's gonna fly by i don't know maybe like uh maybe i'm gonna run and scream if a dragonfly tries to attack me these these are things that could happen uh and you're wondering well why are you outside it's that seems like a strange thing to do after 320 episodes well i'm outside because i wanted to be out here with my pal who really hasn't been on the show very much has never been interviewed that i can remember he is shaking his head no uh so i'd like to welcome to the show my friend mr irving brown socks hi buddy how are you oh those were such sweet little things blinks you just gave me now i'm gonna tell the story of irving and i will kind of relay his reaction to it because he did not want to get on mike he's uh embarrassed about his voice he's he feels like it's it's not podcast worthy and i said well clearly you've never been listening to the bumper podcast because anyone and anything hops on the mics on this show and he just said that's not for and i said okay i'm not gonna pressure you but i figured we would hang out kind of talk it out is that okay oh he's looking past me i see what's happening um so and if it's windy i apologize we do have wind screens on um irving brown socks it was born in i think atlanta georgia probably maybe decatur georgia or just a regular old downtown atlanta and um had a rough life he we adopted him uh and he uh we went to there was there was a grocery store and a target and a pet smart all right in a row whoosh and so we would go to this this shopping center on the weekends and they would have animals outside that you could go and meet and you know and hang out with all these animals take them home and we had two cats at the time and so we were like ah no more animals we got plenty of animals it was spot elliot and peanut loo i think i've told you about them before but you know who knows and uh one day we're walking and we look at this dog and he's a black lab and he's he's like all looking at us and his old tail's all wagging his butt's all moving around just just wagging his tail and uh we're like oh let's take that guy we'll take him for a walk it would give you leashes and they would let you walk him around the perimeter of the parking lot and uh you know it was we went for a walk and he's like looking back at us he's like hey guys it's me and you know whatever you're like all right cool and we took him back we were like thanks so much for letting us walk him you know we hope we had a nice time and uh that was it and then like a week or two later uh we ended up back at the shopping center and kind of went walked back by weren't even going to really look at the animals and there was this little border collie black lab same dude staring at us and like he was laying down and then when we walked by he he hopped up and he was like you i remember you remember me i remember you like it was like this real adorable connection and we had to go into a different store and i like and so it became this thing of like ah i feel like you know whatever they say this with animals but i do think it's kind of true where they choose you like i choose uh you pikachu like we're their pokemon essentially and um so that's how it all started and we took him home and he had gotten into a fight at the foster home that he was at and they the one of the dogs had had bitten his ear and actually had a little little cut a little rip in his ear and he was like oh my god really horrifying and uh so with ears dog ears there's not a lot of blood flow going through there so they it won't heal as quickly um because it can't scab up because of the properties of i don't know scabs i don't know how stuff works this isn't a medical show but he he came to our house and we kept we tried to put little band-aids on it little uh neosporin or whatever and it would never heal and he uh did something and reopened the the scrape and he started shaking his head just everywhere and this is in a our new house that we had bought in in in georgia this is a long time ago and he was just spraying spraying doggy blood everywhere it was horrifying and we were like we can't keep this this dog is crazy he was like you know doing normal dog stuff like eating stuff breaking stuff uh going to the bathroom in the house like it was it was a real real treat uh but we're like nope we got this dog he's he's our dog and we're gonna roll with it so uh eventually uh the the ear healed and he's fine he's running around the backyard having a great time he would escape every so often and it was kind of terrifying we had to go find him where'd he go and uh he's really fast and uh he had a dog next door his best friend was named chocolate and uh chocolate did not have the best of lives but he was he was a sweet dog he was kind of like a a pit bull lab mix and uh he would just kind of they just he kept they kept him outside all the time all the time and uh so i would have to sneak over and try to give chocolate some love but you know socks grew up with chocolate so it was kind of a a sad dog story but we still talk about him sometimes hey remember that chocolate and socks is he's looking at me right now he remembers uh so 15 years you know we we move uh from georgia we he moves into uh my in-law's house up in in in georgia and uh he's in in new york uh hudson valley and uh which he was so he was an inner city dog at that point kind of and we would go for big walks around the city and uh he he's very pulley when he would walk and we tried to train him we took him to doggy training classes and um then we went where did we go from there we went to uh we moved down to jersey to a little apartment in montclair and so he lived in there and it was it was that was his that was his best life i feel like uh because a school field right next to us where it was fenced in and so he could go and he would just just take off just sprint around this field like he was lightning lightning and um so he would go over there every day because it was right next door and um by the way we're gonna talk about this in another episode do you say next door next door n-e-x-t-d-o-o-r next door or next door like we're going to the next door i think it's next door but it sounds like next door anyway that's something that was bothering me last week so uh we we would go for walks and he would we he would he lived in this in this little two-bedroom apartment and um then we had uh emerson and uh you know emerson demands a lot of time and socks socks is very curious about this baby like what is what is this thing making all this noise right and uh he would go and he would look at it was sweet i don't i don't know if i have enough pictures of baby emerson with a teenage socks but um i wish i did um he didn't it was he was confused by snow because you know he's from georgia he's a georgia dog uh we moved around a couple times with the caldwell then we're now we're in uh cedar grove and i built him a i built him a nice fence which he immediately figured out how to get out of which is very sweet when you build a fence for someone just you know you see the fence see the boundaries finish the edges if you have to i never finish the edges so he's he's big on we have a family of deer who live here we have a fox we have a family of bunny rabbits and and he loves to uh interact with them that's what i'll say he loves to bark at him a lot um now he did have i'm giving you the story of my dog's life essentially it's what i'm doing here people um he's a wonderful dog you ever had a dog before dog or bad dog it was a good dog good bad dog i'm so sorry to hear that hey this this socks here he's a great dog he's a wonderful dog but he does he does do some bad things we uh we had a plumber come over once and uh here's the thing so he's a herding dog because of the border collie part so it seems to be his his move is people come in the house he might bark at him a little bit but it's not until they leave the house that he'll run up behind him and grab them all the way to the on their butt with his teeth uh which is not what you're supposed to do dog bad dog he uh he bit the plumber once yeah i bet a friend of mine once and uh and then one time i had a comedian a guy come over i was working on his website and socks is out on his he had a lead in the backyard so it's still there and um yeah he was i was like we'll take him off the lead and i was like no he's good over there i don't want him to he's weird with new people sometimes he's like ah he's fine great it's a bad idea he's like do it and i was like are you sure and i'm standing by socks he's like yeah do it and i unclick them and before the click is unclicked socks just takes off and uh knocked the guy over it was terrifying it was i was horrified um you know so he's very territorial which is you know he takes care of the house he must protect this house it's his house right he protects us and uh what was it a few years ago he got a weird condition on his nose it's so he's just he's this beautiful dog you know he's black he's got he's got white little socks he's got a little white belly a little white uh nose with a little starburst in his face a little bit a little white tip of the end of his tail and uh weighs about coming in weighs about 44 pounds irving brown socks um but he got this weird condition on his nose uh whereby it just kind of he kept rubbing it was like an ocd like a nervous thing where he would rub the edge of his nose off and uh we take him to the doctor they go hey try this cream all right that didn't work try this spray put this cone on his head but nothing was was taking right and um you know so but it wasn't causing him too much distress so we just kind of roll with it and he has as we call it he's got oh he's got the blood nose because look he it's really it's disgusting like he will rub his nose off and it's like you know what he's like oh we're gonna make it happen so why are we let's not please let's not do that that's not a good thing to do um what he does and we still love him love him to pieces smells ah you give the dog a bath and uh immediately like the the smells just linger it is still there he's like he's like pig pin from the peanuts but if he smelled he's he's smell pin i guess i don't know um but you know he he's he's a good old dog and then you know obviously in this weird thing where the kids didn't really latch on to the dog they knew there was a dog in the house was a concept of dog that's a dog uh but it wasn't until i'd say the last two years that they really were like hey you're our dog we love our dog and i was like yeah he's always been here he was here before you and they were like ah okay um and oliver super loves animals so he's it's what i'm saying is poor soxy he's not doing well and um so i'm not doing well i'm very sad about it and i realized that we'd never had a podcast together and i wanted to you know tell you guys about him i want to tell you his little story and so you could know so go rescue a dog right dogs are great if you if you have the means if you can take care of them they're they're fun to have around uh they it was it's all you know they all you got a dog what are you doing practicing to have a kid no kids are you much worse than dog dogs are much easier they just hang out with you they'll watch football whatever um so you know another weird thing is emerson is he's terrified of dogs i'm talking down from a teacup chihuahua all the way up to uh i was gonna say a mastodon but i think that's a an elephant but he's afraid of all dogs except for this dog this dog he's okay with and um every so often and well he feels like he's offended the dog you he's just like ah i think socks is mad at me i said i said something mean about him i'm like oh what did you say i said he smelled he's like he knows he smells he's got a nose everyone knows he smells it's okay and i just have to take emerson over to him and i'm like all right emerson say you're sorry to socks he's like i'm sorry dude and socks is just like i'm a dog and it's uh works out uh fine but it's it's a quirky cute little relationship they have um i did a lot of reading yesterday of articles and i'm like oh my god i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm too lost and because i i don't i don't have i don't know how to deal with you know if he if he passes away and so i was like oh man how do i deal with the the kiddos how do i talk to them about this and i read you know probably that's like 10 articles yesterday and a lot of them it's weird a lot of them they were fast reads because it was like oh there's a lot of copying and pasting happening here like you found this article and then you built off of that and you wrote your article good job you changed some words that's plagiarism um Anyway, that's, you know, that's, that's not my fight today. So, uh, but I got, I did get some, some nice things to do, um, some good ideas. And, um, one of them was, so we're going to have everyone in, uh, if, if, if you ever have an animal die, I will see how this works out, but I think it's, these are nice ideas. Uh, we're going to have everyone write out a list, five things, whatever, uh, of things that they loved about the dog. Um, just nice little things, right? And have those, everyone's going to have their little list and, and then we're going to have a ceremony. And now I've been planning here at headquarters to get a, uh, I want to have like a line of bird feeders, like nice bird feeders that look like little houses. Cause I think those are hilarious to think that there's birds that are living in houses. Uh, do they, you know, how's their wifi? Do they, do they go to work? Whatever. Um, and so we're going to, we're going to get them. We've got a nice bird feeder and I found one that it actually, it lights up at night, a little cling, a little light, which, and now I'm thinking the birds are going to hate that, but we'll see, you know, again, how that works out. But we said, we're going to put this bird feeder in and that's going to be like the, uh, the memorial spot, I guess. And, and we'll have a little ceremony because they all, all the articles say it's important not to just brush this stuff away. It's important not to just sweep it under the rug. You know, this is an event. This is an actual thing that happens in life. This is, this is a thing. It's a part of life. And so you want to acknowledge it and you want to, um, just, you know, you have, you have emotions, you have feelings. Let's, let's work through them. And I think that that makes sense. I think that's a good idea. So we'll have this little spot when we can tell our nice stories about the dog and, and, and maybe have a little bit of closure. Um, the heart, I'm having a couple of hard things. Uh, I think several hard things if I'm to be completely honest, but one of them is, um, uh, Emerson's birthday is on Monday and I, and I can't in any world, uh, bring this dog to the vet today or tomorrow, uh, and have this happen on his birthday. It just doesn't seem right or fair. So I'm, I'm, we're in a bit of a holdout pattern until Tuesday. Um, and you know, he's, he's not in pain. I'm going to say that he's, he seems, uh, moderately alert. His little tail wags. He's just not feeling good. So we're going to have a vet appointment set up for Tuesday. And, um, and that will be quite the day. I'm sure. Um, so I hope you enjoyed the story of Irving Brown Sox. I forgot. So he did live with Spot Elliott and Peanut Lou for a long time. He was in one of my cartoons, maybe two. Um, he, ah, now see now that's, this is where it's going to get sad. So, but now just, it goes with people. It goes with everything in your life. Be thankful for the time. You have with, with stuff, with things, with people, whatever, because you know, I, I, I try to, uh, I do a lot in life and I do a lot in life to, uh, keep moving. I'm like a shark. I want to keep moving or else I guess I, I don't know what happens. I keep, and I, but, and sometimes I don't slow down and enjoy, uh, the moments that I have. I've tried to get better at that recently. Um, to really to stop. And look at what, what's going on around you and acknowledge it. And, uh, is it's important, right? It's, it's time. Time doesn't come back. And, uh, uh-huh. I'm sad. And my little buddy here, he's, he's had a great life. We took him from a not great life. We gave him a great, oh, you can't even look at me. Look at you. You're embarrassed. Oh, look at you. But we gave him a great life. And that's all, that's all I could have done. That's all he wanted in the world. So he, he, he, he did, he had it all, right? And, uh, so that's good. So what I'm saying, so take care of yourself. Take care of people. Take care of animals. Animals are important. Uh, and, uh, just, just, you know, keep, keep moving forward day after day. And, um, did you, did you, at the end here, did you want to say anything? Or is that okay? Did I, did that encapsulate? No. You opened his mouth. Didn't it? He just, he licked his nose. So I think with that, we'll sign off. This is the Bumper Podcast. I am Natty Bumpercar, and I have been talking about and trying to interview my little pal, uh, Irving Brownsox, age 15, weight 44 pounds, beautiful eyes, smelly, fur coming out, even though he gets brushed all the time. Uh, okay. Bye, Sox. I love you.